51 Comments

I couldn't agree more. None of these titles are up my alley anyway so it's not much of an upgrading incentive to srart with. I'm still quite happy with my GTX 570. It plays all of the later releases @ 1080p with no sweat even with all the eye candy turned all the way up. I'll give the 6 series of card a skip & wait to see what the 7 series brings.Reply

While I think at a high level almost everyone would generally prefer a) direct discount, b) rebate, c) bundles like these, in that order, I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that they can't heavily influence a purchase decision if the games are good. This is especially true for pre-release games that people won't already own. I was casually looking at a 7870. I want Bioshock. The same thing that would have cost me $285 is now going to cost me $215, and I get another decent game for free (might have been a Steam purchase a year later for $10). If you know you are going to buy the game shortly after launch anyway, the bundles are absolutely a good value. And I'd rather have Bioshock (even without Tomb Raider) than $30 off the card since it would indisputably keep another $30 in my pocket. The key is the game selection. Usually the free games suck and you end up stuff like Nexuiz and very little in the way of buyer motivation. The Never Settle Reloaded bundle on the other hand is going to move some serious merchandise. And finance wise, AMD/Nvidia are only paying a fraction of the retail cost for anything they are bundling, so these make way more sense for them than sizable discounts.Reply

While I agree these games are better than the average F2P made in the past, they are still F2P oriented. They are about inviting in casual players to play easy content; players who have little or no personal investment in the game and see nothing wrong with buying a piece of gear for real money. The word "earn" is sneered at, as well as the concept of "skill".

And, I don't think the kind of player interested in these games is very unlikely to be interested in a GTX 660 or better. They play on their $500 computers with their $80 LCDs and are quite happy to do so. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it seems to me that the focus of this marketing is to provide the appearance of a bundle, but it is one that will get little use, meaning Nvidia won't be paying much for it. Looks to me like they are trying to save money rather than provide any real value.Reply

there's nothing easy about planetside 2 and it's not all that casual gamer friendly, one of the biggest complaint newcomers have is that there's absolutely no handholding, you just get dropped into the biggest fight on the server and have to stand on your own two legs.

there's also no pay2win, the two things you can only get using real money is camo/vanity stuff that doesn't really affect the gameplay and boosts that for a limited time increases your ressource or xp gain. All weapons can be bought using real money or ingame earned currency (called certs), upgrades to your weapons, class or vehicles (which is the really important stuff) can only be purchased with certs.

imo ps2 takes more skill than, say, counter strike, because it's not just a matter of who's the twitchiest player. It's an open world with endless possiblities, tactics go way beyond just "you go this way and I'll go this way".

also, good luck play planetside on your $500 computer, it's not gonna make for an enjoyable experience, my OC'ed 3770k and HD7950 has to work for it, even just on high settings.Reply

yeah the bundle is kind of silly if you ask me, I mean, if I were on the market for a new gpu I might give this a second thought because at this point I pretty much only play ps2, but very, very few people (more like nobody) will buy a nvidia card just because of this bundle.

on the other hand, the people that do pick up up a new nvidia card will probably be more inclined to try out the games in the bundle so it's more of a win for the studios.Reply

Funny, because while i agree about the advanced nature of the gameplay, my 2.4ghz q6600, 4gb of ram, and ati 4850 play it just fine and it looks great. Sure it could look better, like with say far cry 3, but it still looks just absolutely fantastic and is completely playable :)Reply

No new AMD GPUs for almost all of 2013. Then on the Nvidia side I have been hearing about Titan, but I think Titan wouldn't launch unless Nvidia is delaying it's next gen, because of Titan's size and cost and relative performance compared to potential next gen parts.

This is looking like a really dry year, and a year in which I plan to upgrade with my Tax Return. Sadly it looks like my 560ti is getting replaced with a 7970 ghz edition, it's not the GTX780 I wanted and IMO DESERVE, but with 2 games I was going to buy anyway, Crysis 3 and Bioshock, it's a much better deal then the GTX 680 and its free 2 play crap points.Reply

idk, I feel like these codes would be a PITA to sell. Hardly anybody would trust you. If they were easy to sell, I would totally buy a gtx 660 and sell each 50$ card for 30 bucks. Would mind a 660 for about 120$.Reply

Have you tried Planetside 2? Obviously not, its a beast on high, never mind the unofficial ultra settings. Its a little more forgiving on slightly older cards if you just want to play and dont mind reducing the settings but a latest gen cpu is almost mandatory.

Give the game time tho, its been released barely 2 months and major patch #2 just hit, its more like buggyside 2 right now but the devs are troopers and actually interact with the community, often daily.

Its a free to play game, so try it out for nothing, and the devs are committed to only allowing this card money you get (or can be bought with cash) to assist you, but any weapon can be bought with certs earned ingame too ... its truly not pay2win in that respect and its nice to see them do that.

Lastly where else in the PC FPS gaming can you find battles of literally hundreds of players battling over one base (the Crown) while the rest of the map (up to 2000 players per server) is alive with tanks, aircraft and land troops alike? Its unique in gaming right now, 64 players or less was boring the life out of me tbh.Reply

I've heard of all three, and all three seem to be reasonably popular. Not to mention they're ALL free to play. But I'm curious: which games are the "unknowns" on the list in your book?

World of Tanks has 45 million players registered worldwide, so even if we say only 10% are active that would be 4.5 million -- that's pretty much a runaway success in the gaming industry.

Arguably the best known of the games in the US, Planetside 2, comes up with just over 3 million accounts at present. It's about two months old, so that's a pretty good number for just two months.

Hawken is the game with the fewest accounts it seems, but again it's relatively young (launched Dec. 12, 2012) and there are plenty of people that like mech games so I expect it to do reasonably well. I couldn't find any accurate player counts anywhere, but there are only 15K or so user accounts at PlayHawken.com -- if that's their total player base, they're in trouble.Reply

I was contemplating setting up an Eyefinity system (for desktop use, not a true 5760x1080 CrossFire system for gaming), but wanted to see what kind of game bundle Nvidia countered with. I'm glad they answered quickly, but I have no interest in this. A 7870 with Bioshock and Tomb Raider on the other hand is interesting to me. I want the former game, worst case I'd sell the code for the latter. Hell I even thought about picking up a 7850 1GB too for the HTPC. It would be a really nice card for ~$70 after a trip to eBay to sell both the codes. Now my only sticking point is wondering if I'd really enjoy streaming gaming to a SHIELD...Reply

Do you think the game codes would sell? I feel like people would be skeptical buying game codes on ebay, and I know ebay has buyer protection but what about seller? I would hate to sell a code, have them register it, and then file with ebay saying it was already used and get my money taken back...Reply

Codes for the 3 games in the AMD bundle would definitely sell. Steam codes end up for sale on eBay all the time. Getting ripped off by the buyer is a legitimate concern, but that's true of selling anything. We'd all prefer direct rebates to worrying about flipping some portion of the transaction, but nobody is going to sell me a new 7850 with a lifetime warranty for under $100 :). Technically you should be able to resell the Nvidia codes too, I'm just not convinced the market for reselling in-game cash for existing F2P games is as big as the market to gobble up AAA titles that aren't even available yet. You can likely resell either bundle, you'll probably just get back more of the code's value for the retail games. There's several Never Settle bundles up at a certain auction site now, you can always watch a few to see where the bidding ends up. I'm not a big gamer so I don't follow bundles very closely, but the AMD one definitely got my attention for perceived "value" of the games. This Nvidia bundle only got a chuckle.Reply

It's just way better to buy a 7900 card, get 3 games, try those 3 F2P games with roughly the same performance (except for PhysX, maybe?) AND if I ever feel I want to really sink on one of those F2P games I can chose which one I find better suited for my taste AND THEN pay for something in it.

IF this bundle was really a 75-150$ voucher for any F2P game on a list it *could* get interesting, but right now I would NEED to commit myself for ALL THREE of those games to make this bundle worthwhile, and must of us just can't do that. OR would want to do that.

This should be put in the hall of fame of ridiculous ideas, credit on F2P games? WTH.Reply

It would have been so cool if nVidia worked with other game devs to get their ingame cash accepted instead of these titles. I would have loved to have some for LoL or for character slots in GW2. Wouldve made the 660 a definite buy, although with those games they may have had to tone down the offers.Reply

I think NVIDIA partnered up with some game companies that are offering next-gen graphics so that the GTX offerings would be of some benefit. While GW2 certainly can tax a system to a moderate degree, LoL is known to be quite forgiving of hardware.Reply

I've been an advocate of Nvidia products and TWIMTBP for a long time...but this has to be an all-time low for the logo program. I'm pretty appalled Nvidia would call this a counter to AMD's stellar Never Settle Reloaded bundle.

Just bundle $150 worth of Steam credit and call it a day Nvidia, it's a real reach to expect anyone to 1) actually be interested in this collection of F2P titles and 2) be interested in them long enough to punch in codes to redeem in-game cash.

Can anyone who actually plays these games tell us if the currency is even worth anything on the open market like Ebay? If you can get $20 USD for $50 game-cash that'd be about the same payout for AAA titles bundled with graphics cards.Reply

LOL...What NV is doing is inspiring sales while not losing money. What AMD is doing is adding yet another year of 1.8B in losses (NV's way makes you ~550mil).

See the difference?

Also, just a guess but if you choose not to use the in game crap, I think NV gets out of paying (more good management decisions), vs. game codes that cost AMD even if you don't play or sell it.

Giving away AAA titles is stupid and a sign of desperation, which makes sense given they're trying to clear the shelves still after having paid ~750mil to GF in fines for not using enough wafers. This is not some biased comment here, this is simple math. AMD needs to kill the bundle or charge more for their cards. Otherwise, get ready for another billion dollar FY2013 loss. Meanwhile, NV adds 300mil/quarter to their cash pile. I'm guessing 3.8B cash this quarter up from 3.45B last quarter. Jen has said he wants the price war to stop and doesn't understand AMD's strategy. I don't either. Their actions only lead to bankruptcy or a weakening of their stock price/company value, which in turn kills R&D (hence the product delay).

I expect NV to announce a delay to their cards in the Conf Call or shortly after as no AMD in your rear view mirror now so why push out your next version. Hence the easy Titan play to keep bringing in the cash on the top end while AMD bleeds at the bottom. This is just good business sense. Intel has acted the same way to AMD's failures on the cpu front. I'm confused as to why AMD keeps giving away profits, when Jen would gladly raise the price on everything he sells 10% if AMD gave him the chance. He openly said he'd like to make more money (he was talking personally about his stock at the time...LOL), but AMD persists with the death spiral pricing.

Look at Intel. They're looking to raise ultrabooks to $1400 and many companies area complaining about haswell pricing. NV would like to do the same, but AMD keeps blocking it (cutting off your nose to spite your face no?). Clearly Intel ran away with the cpu race and AMD is forced to discount those. But they have excellent gpu's and should charge accordingly and stop giving games out. NV would be more than happy to match that strategy. They used to pocket $850Mil/FY before AMD went to war. Now $500mil with help from an Intel case victory. I like free games. But I'd much rather have TWO extremely STRONG gpu companies gunning for my dollar. At this rate, xmas 2014 it will be Intel vs. NV, not NV vs AMD. So basically we'll have ONE high end option and Intel crap option. Raise your hand again if you like free games, and remember that vote is a vote for AMD going out of business.

They made a mistake spending R&D money on consoles that will have their sales plunging from phones, tablets, ouya, steambox, NV shield, Gamestop wikipad, etc etc taking revenue...I expect this gen's consoles to sell 1/2 to 3/4 what they did last round as other devices are "good enough" or will be better shortly after they debut. Steambox will be upgradable (so says Gabe N.), ouya is committed to yearly refresh (new tegra every year, which should catch consoles at tegra 5 or at least 6 a few years in), shield puts ultimate power on your tv via your PC already (which is vastly faster than next consoles) and there's more I'm leaving out here. The point is consoles have a LOT of competition for the TV time this round and most of that competition is ready to be re-spinning the gear yearly it seems.

AMD should have just made a good GPU for desktop this year (& raised prices on that new gen) with the console R&D money. It would have been easier to use those wafers then instead of taking hit after hit and change the WSA :) They won't start bringing in money from consoles in a meaningful way for a year (and those sales will lag previous versions anyway), while the gpu refresh could be selling that entire time. Bad move AMD. What's that saying? A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush ;) You can consider Titan a 1/2 bird here...LOL, but still a bird nonetheless. Never settle should be re-named "we never should've done it" bundle.Reply

For far too long, we heard here, how nVidia was 6 or 8 moths late to the game...Over and over amd was praised.... now this is what we get...

" Keep in mind that both the AMD and NVIDIA bundles are delivering new games with hardware that is now several months old at best--in fact, AMD's bundle with the 7800 and 7900 uses hardware that's roughly a year old, and the GTX 680 is from the same era. "

Oh, the same era... amd not over 1 year old WHICH IT IS.

And.. nVidia the same now... as if release was same day, as older is now worse not better as in released first..

I'm going to be playing some of the games, but I'll probably just want to sell them. $150 in in game money is kind of overkill for the average person.

I wonder if you'll be able to trade it with steam or something somehow. Hopefully I won't just have to put it into my account and then not be able to do anything with it. Or else I might just sell the physical coupon or wahtever it is that has the codes and stuff.Reply

Compare to Amd's bundle , this is joke, why ?in Poker game , if you raise 1000$ , you can not say "ok i bet 100$",nv should take bundle for high range Cards.so NV , do you have any plan for GTX 670 & 680 ?Reply